Squeak-dev June 2001

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122 participants
362 discussions

Re: Collection squared but what about fractions.
by John M McIntosh 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

> >As the original author... If you implement the latter, then any >mathematical entity you want to put in your collections will need to >implement squared. Not a big deal, but its nice to just be able to >implement */+-raisedTo: and have just about every other derived >function work. Why is squared taking so long (don't have a current >Squeak image)? I'm betting it avoids the reduction test? Well Number>>squared is implemented. But my point is that if you create a Numeric based object Foo, and a specialized squared method for performance, then stick that into a collection and square the collection then your work isn't used. The pattern being used in math in collections is aways foo operator, but in squared we've used foo otheroperator. Andreas pointed out a way to ensure the fraction logic gets used, and it' has some merit because it also considers the generate case of someone doing object * object. But it doesn't solve the general case above. However I'll tidy up Andreas suggestion and submit it. -- -- =========================================================================== John M. McIntosh <johnmci(a)smalltalkconsulting.com> 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ===========================================================================

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Legal view on Public Licenses
by Michael Rueger 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

This rather extensive memo on "The Enforceability of Mass-Market Public Software Licenses" was published on slashdot: http://www.vjolt.net/vol5/issue3/v5i3a11-Ravicher.html Thought it might be an interesting read. Michael

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On interfaces - Morphic Wrappers
by Gerardo Richarte 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

This days we have a thread on user interfaces, this time is about how to use Squeak with non-standard input devices, or, more precisely, without keyboard. It is not the first time we can enjoy this kind of discussions, there have been a lot of them in the list. Personally, I love to read about UIs. Today, we can say that once again there is a version of the MorphicWrappers available to download. This latest version is ready to be used in a Squeak3.1a-4048. It's not a long time since that previous update (just 100 updates), but before that it was a little longer (800 updates). It's a really tough job to maintain MorphicWrappers (we all suffer for maintaining packages for squeak up to date...) We almost gave up, but the team keeps growing and the new people comes with fresh energy to maintain the package. So here it comes, from deep in the heart of the latest adopters of the MorphicWrappers way of interacting with the World: We started the project almost 3 years ago with the first version of Morphic, in Squeak 2.3 (I'm not really sure when it was). MW is today an ancient project, but we think it's still current, and even a little in the future. We´ve been using it continously all this time, and we got adicted to them. Here at core where I work, there is people that learned Smalltalk & Squeak using them, and the other day, one of them asked what a Workspace is! just imagine that! Don't wait! You have to live the MorphicWrappers experience, then, you'll have the experience to say "I don't like MWs", but you won't say it. Go get them at http://mathMorphs.swiki.net/MorphicWrappers Interfacing Bye! Once again, Richie --- For a personal reply use gera(a)core-sdi.com

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RE: CAS and Squeak
by Jarvis, Robert P. (Contingent) 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

> From: Sam Adams [mailto:ssadams@us.ibm.com] > > <snip!> > This is a pattern (Metatype-Genotype-Phenotype, or MGP) that shows up > frequently when modeling domains that include class/instance > relationships. > Its a bit too "meta" for most folks, but its very powerful, > in my view one > of the 3 most powerful complexity reducing patterns known, > the others being > Ward's "Whole Value", aka make your objects model your domain, and > "Thing/GroupThing" (TGT), a slightly more complete form of > the "Gang of > Four" composite pattern. Whenever I have a design where all > three of these > patterns can be applied in concert, I get extreme reduction in the > complexity of the design and a resulting object model with incredible > expressive power while staying true to the domain. Is there a web page or other reference you could suggest describing these patterns? I found a reference for the "Whole Value" pattern at http://c2.com/ppr/checks.html, but could find no references to MGP or TGT. Thanks. Bob Jarvis Compuware @ Timken

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[ANN] 1st ESUG Doctoral Symposium
by Roel Wuyts 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

1st ESUG Doctoral Symposium part of the 9th ESUG Smalltalk Conference Essen, Germany http://www.esug.org/summerschools/2001_Essen/index.html The ESUG Doctoral Symposium brings together PhD and Master students with experienced Smalltalk developers from industry and academia. Students have the opportunity to present their research in a separate, dedicated track of the 9th ESUG Smalltalk Conference. The program committee will then give feedback on their work, from a research and a Smalltalk perspective. This call is for both students and committee members: - Students that are interested in participating should send their name, affiliation, promotor and an abstract. The abstract should describe the context of the research, the problem that is tackled, and the outline of the solution. It should indicate where Smalltalk is used and the motivation for using it. - Experienced Smalltalkers or holders of a PhD are invited to join the event and form a committee that will review the abstracts, attend the Doctoral Symposium and give comments on the students' research. Please send a short resumee to rwuyts(a)iam.unibe.ch. More information about the 9th ESUG Smalltalk Conference (and the Doctoral Symposium) can be found on the ESUG website: http://www.esug.org/summerschools/2001_Essen/index.html/. See you in Essen ! Roel Wuyts & Elit Miranda -- Roel Wuyts Software Composition Group Roel.Wuyts(a)iam.unibe.ch University of Bern, Switzerland Board member of the European Smalltalk User Group: www.esug.org

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Re: CAS and Squeak
by Sam Adams 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

Robert, Your right of course about the time scale required for reasonably successful browser evolution, but hey, parts of the Smalltalk image have been runnning continuosly (sans naps) for decades. And then theres the voting thing. Chad happens. Actually, the most interesting part of the "browser evolution problem" for me is the part about modeling both the functional genotype and functional phenotypes. Alan has lamented for years how we all just accepted the metaclass/class/instance framework we've inherited. THis is a good example of using the existing metaclass/class/instance system to bootstrap a different "metaclass" system, albeit for a specific modeling domain. What we would need for this browser evolution thing would be a Smalltalk class that models a genotype (the brower meta definition) and another Smalltalk class that models the phenotype(s) (the actual running browser instance). This requires a bit of cognitive gymnastics, because the class of your genotype object is effectively the genotype of the genotype (I call them metatypes) and the class that models your phenotype is the genotype of the instance from the Smalltalk perspective, but not from the modeling perspective. But of course, these are also just Smalltalk classes and instances at the same time from the programmer's perspective. Remind anyone of their first Smalltalk class when someone asked the question, "well if everything is an object, and all objects are instance of some class, then a class is an instance, so what is its class?" And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around. This is a pattern (Metatype-Genotype-Phenotype, or MGP) that shows up frequently when modeling domains that include class/instance relationships. Its a bit too "meta" for most folks, but its very powerful, in my view one of the 3 most powerful complexity reducing patterns known, the others being Ward's "Whole Value", aka make your objects model your domain, and "Thing/GroupThing" (TGT), a slightly more complete form of the "Gang of Four" composite pattern. Whenever I have a design where all three of these patterns can be applied in concert, I get extreme reduction in the complexity of the design and a resulting object model with incredible expressive power while staying true to the domain. On the irreversibility question, interesting ways to look at the work of an image might include: 1) the "unorganized" memory that is colonized with new instances (image growth) 2) the amount of memory reclaimed from object death (garbage collection) 3) the diversity of instance populations (image ecology) 4) the connectedness of the instances (high connectedness implies a highly collaborative design) 5) the growth of diversity (new classes or varying prototypes) 6) the number of blitted bits (total energy output?) 7) number of characters or mouse clicks consumed from the user 8) number of characters or documents (files) input or output 1-5 sounds alot like Thomas Ray's TIERRA alife, so there might be more fruitful analogies along that path. For instance, what is a parasite object or morph in Squeak? Regards, Sam Sam S. Adams, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research tie line 444-0736, outside 919-254-0736, email: ssadams(a)us.ibm.com <<Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 1:16-17, I Corinthians 1:10>> "Robert Withers" To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu> <rwithers12@med cc: iaone.net> Subject: Re: CAS and Squeak 06/05/01 09:40 AM Please respond to squeak Sam, "Evolving" systems do seem to suffer this problem of slow improvements, to which David refers. A measure I had heard was that a GA halves the fitness distance to the optimal solution for each doubling of evolution time. We would also have a performance cost for evaluating individuals in a population. For browser evolution with voting feedback, if we want 1000 individuals per generation, and it takes 1 sec per evaluation, with 40 generations to evolve over, we have a lot of evaluating (and voting too!). This is why CAS stikes a chord. Once the engine is started, it should change behavior over shorter timescales. Maybe it would be interesting to evolve a screensaver evaluator, where we evolve the fitness evaluator for screensaver evolution. This could work by generating a random evaluator, then the screensaver would evolve using this evaluator. We vote relatively on the best screensaver to come from that evaluator when we come back from coffee. :) CAS would seem to drive a different view of generating new browser layouts if we could only specify and model it. A genetic specification, for a browser layout, could efficiently encode the structure for the evolution side of alife. We could include the action handlers and aspect displayers as part of the gene expression for the browser. I am having difficulty in imagining how we could structure the phenotype as a CAS. Do you think we could model a CAS as the event processor behind a browser, to "evaluate" the phenotype of each browser genotype? The Browser CAS should be able to always enforce the constraints (layout, event handling, and display), but also efficiently produce results. These results could be the answer to any query, especially alt-q types of queries and senders/implementors. As I get further in Kauffman's book, irreversibility starts to come back to me from the dark days of stat mech and work cycles. Can we define the "work" that an image does when we interact with it? Perhaps in the area of reflection activities? Every operation certainly changes the thermodynamic state of the image, but we also keep a history list. Doits that aren't reversable ("OrderedCollection allInstances become: Smalltalk") seem to represent irreversible informational actions, and since information is a thermodynamic state of energy.... cheers, Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: Sam Adams <ssadams(a)us.ibm.com> To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 9:54 AM Subject: Re: CAS and Squeak (emerging... ;-)) > Rob, > Here's an example "alife" application to try in Squeak. Since we have all > these nice high level morphs, events and scripts now, why not let your > tools "evolve" on their own? For instance, what if our beloved browser > occasionally opened up with a different structure, even just a different > layout, or perhaps with an extra pane or two showing other known aspects of > classes, variables and methods. The "genes" involved determine the kinds > of panes to include, their relative size and layout, what menu items to > present, etc. Selection would occur via the user "voting" in various > degrees in favor of the change, perhaps by the time the window is left > open, the number of clicks within (usage), or a simple ballot on the title > bar. The alife system would then take the experience into consideration > when proposing the next browser to the user. Slow, for sure. Frustrating > for the user, probably. But would it generate something novel that might > stick? Possibly, which is often the best you can do with > generation/variation/selection systems. > > Paul Fernhout once built a fascinating alife application when we were both > at the AI lab at North Carolina State University. These robot critters > wandered around scavenging (and sometimes stealing) parts from the > environment and each other and assembling copies of themselves that then > went off to do likewise. Aside from the fun of watching such a system run, > there were a number of interesting cases where more than one critter fought > over the same part, or strange hybrid critters appeared. Something like > that in Morphic would be way cool. Consider a little robot (or even > better, several) wandering around your desktop reassembling morphs, > copying, stealing and de/recomposing scripts. Sort of like blobmorphs with > a mission. > > Regards, > Sam > > Sam S. Adams, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research > tie line 444-0736, outside 919-254-0736, email: ssadams(a)us.ibm.com > <<Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 1:16-17, I Corinthians 1:10>> > > > > > "Robert > Withers" To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu> > <rwithers12@med cc: > iaone.net> Subject: Re: CAS and Squeak (emerging... ;-)) > > 06/01/2001 > 02:45 AM > Please respond > to squeak > > > > > > Hi Sam, > I didn't know Squeak could do that. :) That's the exact vein of reading > that I've done in years past. I made it through half of Prigogine's > "Order > out of Chaos" (and it was tough going) and read Kauffman's original volume > "Orgins of Order", which rocks. It's also out of print though. > > I hadn't heard of Echo, since it has been several years since I followed > SFI > work. Here is a link in case others are interested: > http://www.santafe.edu/projects/echo/. Unfortunately it seems as if many > of > the links are broken. I'd be interested in helping bring Echo to Squeak. > > The only stumbling block I come across when considering alife and friends > is > what to apply it too. It is interesting for it's own sake, and of course > there is cognition (wow!), but most things done in a computer are linear > ordered operations. Almost everything people do _programmatically_ is > focussed around controlling inputs (in a very restrictive way), > transforming > the data, and generating output. Except for (and not exclusively) we (wee? > wheee!) Squeakers and Smalltalkers. Maybe the reactive parts of a computer > environment could be good areas for this, like scheduling, simulation, UI > event processing and human interaction, and 'new breed' AI (neural nets, > GAs, alife). > > There is this aspect of the Squeak environment that seems as if it is close > to doing your next task for you. How could we increase feedback to Squeak > about the efficiency and fluidity of an individual interacting with Squeak? > There seems to be several modes that I operate in with Squeak. Exploring > classes, debugging, designing, playing with tools like Alice, sound and > such. A properly specified CAS may detect these different modes and may > be > able to change structure/behavior appropriately. Instead of separate > bounded projects, each with their own layouts and open views, when we > switch > modes, Squeak would restructure the current project's tools for that mode > of > interaction (we would still have different Projects but I like how one can > switch immersions). I like to think there is a way to build a CAS that > could adapt to those perceived modes of operation and the resulting > immersion. > > Everyone puts so much work into Squeak, that we may be able to achieve > negative changes in entropy, but I think that's different than > irreversibility. Now where did I leave Ilya's book... > > Rob > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Sam Adams <ssadams(a)us.ibm.com> > To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu> > Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 10:56 PM > Subject: CAS and Squeak (evolved from: Squeakland Evolution project thingy > ;-)) > > > > Rob, > > Ahh, now you're talking. I too have been long fascinated by the dynamics > > of complex systems, especially emergent behavior. Hollands "Hidden > Order" > > is a great source of ideas and approaches for complex software systems. > > Anyone up for implementing ECHO in Squeak? Also, Kauffman's previous > work > > "At Home in the Universe" contains an excellent but simple experiment to > > describe his NK models (the buttons and string example) that would make a > > great interactive essay. Almost 5 years ago, Steve Burbeck and I > > implemented something akin to his random boolean networks in Squeak as > part > > of our research into Self Configuring Systems at IBM. It's truly amazing > > how quickly such system's lock into the "frozen" or "highly ordered" > > regime, even starting from a completely (pseudo)random network of > > interacting nodes with random goals. Very counterintuitive. This > research > > has led us to develop techniques for harnessing and steering emergent > > behavior in the service of some very ambitious research goals, namely > > human-like cognition in machines. Yes, in Squeak. Most of the details > are > > all under wraps of course and we expect a number of years of work ahead > to > > achieve the goal, but some of the progress we are making is very > promising. > > Think feedback loops, lots of them, intersecting each other, then go and > > contemplate a whirlpool vortex in your local creek or bathtub for awhile. > > Sorry, flush toilets won't do, on either side of the equator. ;-) > > > > While I'm on the subject of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and Squeak, > has > > anyone spent any cycles considering the irreversibility of a Squeak > image? > > Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate in chemistry, wrote an excellent if > > difficult book on complexity and irreversibility called "Order out of > > Chaos", back in 1989, but it seems to be out of print. I haven't read > his > > latest work, "The End of Certainty : Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of > > Nature" by Isabelle Stengers and Ilya Prigogine, but it seems to be on > the > > same track. His preoccupation with the so called "Arrow of Time" could > be > > very enlightening if applied to software development, especially in the > > dynamical social context of the Squeak community. > > > > FYI, I recently found an excellent online introduction to Chaos and > > Complexity in a rather unorthodox place, http://www.cna.org/isaac/lw1.pdf > . > > Warning, its a bit of a fat download for the narrowbanded. > > > > Regards, > > Sam > > > > Sam S. Adams, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research > > tie line 444-0736, outside 919-254-0736, email: ssadams(a)us.ibm.com > > <<Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 1:16-17, I Corinthians 1:10>> > > > > > > > > > > > >

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Squeakland plug in and image
by John Hinsley 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

Since the Squeakland page still doesn't direct me to a Linux plug-in (in fact, it doesn't even recognise that I'm using Linux and thinks I'm running Mac! -- refrain: "If I were a reetch man...." -- (I'd probably buy Sparc...... ;-) )) I though I'd ask what plugin/image are Unix folk using to get at Squeakland? Cheers John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: [ENH] Expand box on system Window
by Scott Wallace 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

Jim, This is really useful, and nicely done. Your fileout is now in the internal update stream, with a few minor tweaks plus a do-it in the postscript that adds the zoom box to existing system windows. Thanks, -- Scott At 1:40 AM -0700 5/30/01, Jim Benson wrote: >One of the little friends that I miss in Squeak after jumping from OS >windows back to Squeak is the 'expand to full screen' button that is >available on most OS title bars. > >Surprisingly, I missed my little friend enough to write one for Squeak !!! I >even created a very special icon for it ( well, maybe not so special, it >looks disturbingly similar to the MVC collapse icon. However, I did draw it >myself without any tracing paper ;-) > >I wrote and tested this for Squeak 3.1, changeset number 4081. > > >Jim > >Content-Type: application/x-gzip; > name="ExpandBox.1.cs.gz"

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Re: Collection squared but what about fractions.
by merlyn＠stonehenge.com 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

>>>>> "Andreas" == Andreas Raab <Andreas.Raab(a)gmx.de> writes: Andreas> John, Andreas> How about making a little tweak in Fraction along the lines of: Fraction> * aNumber Andreas> self == aNumber ifTrue:[ Andreas> "special case for squaring fractions" Andreas> ^self squared] Andreas> "...." Andreas> This might even help in some other cases (note that the above uses #== to Andreas> prevent doing a full comparison in case of a non-fractional argument). Does that actually make sense? Are all 1/2's identical? I can see using "=", but not "==". Just tested: (1/2) == (1/2) false (1/2) = (1/2) true So, nope, that true branch would most likely never get triggered. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <merlyn(a)stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

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RE: Collection squared but what about fractions.
by John M McIntosh 05 Jun '01

05 Jun '01

>John, > >How about making a little tweak in Fraction along the lines of: > >Fraction>>* aNumber > self == aNumber ifTrue:[ > "special case for squaring fractions" > ^self squared] > "...." > >This might even help in some other cases (note that the above uses #== to >prevent doing a full comparison in case of a non-fractional argument). > >Cheers, > - Andreas Well we could do that, I'd check first to see what the impact is, but since we already do some checking in Fraction>>* I doubt there will be any great impact. However the issue is kind of still there, if you add a specialized squared routine for performance reasons, you don't get it invoked when dealing with collections. -- -- =========================================================================== John M. McIntosh <johnmci(a)smalltalkconsulting.com> 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ===========================================================================

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